Can I Make My Fridge Smart on a Budget? with an ESP32-CAM!

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In this video, I demonstrate how to transform a standard fridge into a smart fridge using ESPHome, DS18B20, 3D printing, and the esp32-cam module. Watch as we seamlessly integrate technology for temperature monitoring and internal viewing. If you find the content informative, please hit 'Like' and consider subscribing for more tech tutorials.
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www.printables.com/social/282...
Credits:
Subtitles (English) - Joseph Taylor

[@robtinkers]

It definitely needs a light sensor to check the light goes out when you close the door.

[@kmain5587]

Can't do that, a fridge light is like Schrödinger's box, you can't be sure if it is on or off, If you observe it the whole fridge breaks down.🤣

[@behindthemistakes]

You need three. That way you have redundancy and control functionality (triple modular redundancy) 😅

[@Redfire05GT]

@Mellow_labs, is your fridge still functioning after you were inside it at the beginning of this video?

[@behindthemistakes]

@@Redfire05GT Mr. Mellow is a cool customer, so I have no doubt it still works 😄

[@Mellow_labs]

Sorry for the late reply, got stuck in the fridge. Can confirm still works😂

[@anterprites]

2:00 door sensor is kinda nice, even new dumb fridges have it and start beeping if they are open too long. And even if fridge is at an angle, some drawers might block closing them

[@thoriumbr]

Give everyone NFID bracelets, add a reader on the fridge door, and computer vision can be used to see who eats what, and detect who left the door open the last time.

[@CrudeButEfficient]

Neat version one! For version two, I would look into having weight scales for dedicated areas (milk, juice, butter) so the smart fridge can tell when you need to buy more. And some kind of mild/rotten smell detector for the vegetable drawer would also be good. Let's not go into why I know that...

[@janwroblewski8183]

I love your humor!

[@DavidWhatfor]

Awesome and Subscribed. I'm looking at doing something like adjusting the temp in the fridge to be consistent. i.e. if opening the door a lot then put the temp down more but say if gone on holiday and not opening at all then no need to have it so cold or something along those lines. I'm loving the ESPHome stuff though. I've currently got 7 of them and created a smart desktop fan following another channel which cost me all of about £50 including the fan, I can control the fan either by HA or buttons on the actual fan but I'd like to make it adjust the speed depending on how much hotter the temp is compared to the ideal temp I can set via a few controls. With more and more companies closing their APIs and such these projects are very promising plus all local and no relying on a cloud provider or absolute minimum cloud reliance.

[@petercollins797]

So I work in controls engineering and we often have to monitor valves for open and close states, without having any sort of exact position feedback, sometimes we need to alarm points, like for example this valve that's critical to operation needs to be proven open before anything else, so that is the state we want to see it in so we alarm if it's not. Basically though it seemed like from the demo with the reed switches that you are looking for the magnet to prove fully open, but it would probably make more sense to have them show proven closed so that if it's not proven closed for some period of time, you can alarm on that. You don't really care if it's fully open, but you definitely care if it's not fully closed!

[@villehietala9677]

It looks in the end that it detects when the door opens just a little bit (I noticed too, that in the ha-demo it seemed to be backwards). I would skip the magnets in that case and use copper tape on the door sealing strip as a contact. But, for the photo, it would be nice to know when it's fully open, so you could see the same fov every time.

[@petercollins797]

@@villehietala9677 good point. Maybe a linear potentiometer at the hinge on the right side to get analog feedback?

[@minted3d650]

Not sure if you used it or not but the esp32-cam module also has a separate wifi antenna you can buy that will help the stream quality. In my experience this with a good clean 5V power supply and bright even lighting does wonders for the cheap OV2640 camera.

[@gearscodeandfire]

Definitely have to add nearfield tags to all of your perishables! Great vid as always

[@Mellow_labs]

I have a diffract project in mind for nearfield tags

[@AlyaAmarsy]

A funny and interesting video, once again!

[@Mellow_labs]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Tntdruid]

A barcode scanner to scan the food 😄

[@nhoenderop]

1 second in and I am sold

[@the_smart_home_maker]

Great video but I would have hoped for a little more smartness than only taking a picture of the fridge contents. Maybe detect, classify and count objects (maybe even identify how much those are filled up) so that one could automatically put them on the shopping list if nearly empty?

[@Mellow_labs]

Sure if you write the code for that, I only had a few days for the project.

[@the_smart_home_maker]

@@Mellow_labs it was meant as an idea for the next project 😊😎

[@Mellow_labs]

I’ll try my best it will be while until version 2

[@frankweiler7121]

Alarm when the temperature rises slowly. Our fridge recently didn't fully close over night because something inside blocked the door slightly. Everything warmed up and got humid. You wouldn't have noticed from looking at it. And I imagine a door sensor would have still indicated it as being closed. Also can you take the picture when you are about to _close_ the fridge?

[@Mellow_labs]

I think you could probably position the door sensor in such a way to catch when it’s just slightly open they can be pretty sensitive if positioned correctly. I could take the photo right before closing, but that slightly complicates things because it’s not a very fast camera and you kind of motion is just gonna bloody entire image. And I would probably need some kind of Excelerator on the door to detect when it’s being closed.

[@seanmcdonald656]

Another interesting video. One suggestion would be to have multiple cameras at a few levels. Then the camera could be contained inside the fridge.

[@Mellow_labs]

I have thought about that, but it doesn’t look good. Unless you’re doing some weird AI combination of the camera feeds, it’s just kind of a mess. Also no Wi-Fi in the fridge. Everything has to be external anyway.

[@siniorgolazo]

@@Mellow_labs There's no need to use AI shenanigans. You could use OpenCV's panorama/image stitching functions. It's a pity that everything has to be external, though :(

[@ChrisHorton343]

Why not have magnetic sensors for door open and have it just on the edge of the seal? Since it uses a magnet

[@Mellow_labs]

Because it’s an inbuilt fridge there really not a lot of space between the door and the cabinet.

[@ChrisHorton343]

@@Mellow_labs sorry I was just thinking those sensors where magnetic based, I've been planning on building something similar so I'm probably going to be watching your development if you post about it again. It was quite interesting

[@JOEYZ-nq2gn]

My fridge's control board gave up, home assistant, Node-red, DS18B20 temp sensors and some relays 🤔 should be possible to fix

[@Mellow_labs]

If you’re using ESP home, I don’t actually think you need node red.

[@JOEYZ-nq2gn]

@@Mellow_labs my thought process was I may need Node Red to control a few of the things like switching off the compressor depending on whether the door is open (can most likely do that through HA) or not as well as delaying compressor start incase there's a power failure because where I live the power frequently switches on and off so basically delay start. But I may be able to accomplish all of that in HA with ESPhome, but I'd need to research more as I don't have much experience with either but I've got a bit of knowledge on node red

[@Mellow_labs]

Fair enough, I’ve started moving away from node red. I would probably prefer to do it inside of ESP home because I wouldn’t have to wait for all of Home Assistant to boot up before my fridge can turn on again. It would be faster if that logic was on the microcontroller.

[@JOEYZ-nq2gn]

@@Mellow_labs slow boot times in my case would be a benefit due to the power issues, I was originally going to do everything in node red ...The only reason for adding Home Assistant into the mix was I like what I'd be able to do with it in terms of a dashboard...thank you btw for the replies it helps the thought process

[@alldave]

You could have the camera potentially above the door looking down

[@Mellow_labs]

I didn’t make the perspective

[@alldave]

@Mellow_labs like camera sideways above the door? Does the darn thing not even see properly like that?

[@christophec.482]

An idea : a 1 year timelapse of the fridge content 😅

[@Mellow_labs]

Definitely 😂

[@Redfire05GT]

You might not want to see the state of your apples and lettuce after a year in the fridge!!

[@makanimike]

* wifi because it probably requires a subscription....?

[@valzzu]

if it works, why fix it

[@guncheque3026]

for fun i guess idk im not mellow labs

[@smashyrashy]

Mind your business

[@bogorad]

The first thing I did for my fridge is put a power metering socket. Then I wasted ~40 Euros on the wifi cable for my Bosch fridge. Totally useless, can't even tell which door is open. Has no temp sensors, only reports the temp setting.

[@behindthemistakes]

What is even "smart"? Is a fridge really smart before it realises you are about to run out of milk and order you some more to be delivered to your door, so you don't have to? Then it could also find discount codes and evaluate those towards the expiry date of the product and your rate of consumption and evaluate whether to order now or not 😅

[@Mellow_labs]

These days the bar is pretty low, some are considered smart just because they have a display that tells you the temperature.

[@Redfire05GT]

@@Mellow_labs I unfortunately remember when a "smart" fridge was one that simply could maintain a constant temperature and automatically turn the inside light on and off, unlike their predecesors that were big dumb boxes with no light and a large block of ice that you were constantly replacing!

[@codahq]

Putting the refrigerator on a slope......... Yawn. You can make the door close on its own without sacrificing level. Also, neither one will fix a kid leaving something in the way that prevents the door from closing all the way.

[@Mellow_labs]

Make the kid smart too, problem solved.😂😂